Welcome today Mars (action) into the sign of Virgo (critical analysis and discernment). What a perfect time to hone our review skills!

Some journalist say the best way to write an eye catching review is ring up the author’s ex and ask them the questions. Ouch! In lieu of this second hand (or under hand) approach, here are ten tips to consider when writing a review. Additions most welcome!

Know your audience. If you want to capture the readers’ interest by using tone, vocabulary and references that make sense to them, you need to know who they are.

Know your publication. Whether you review for a blog, newspaper, magazine or online forum, familiarize yourself with their previously published reviews. What do the editors/moderators want? Word count? Tone? Emphasis?

Review the book, not yourself. It’s easy to talk about how you might have handled a certain character, dialog or event differently than the author. These kinds of anecdotes are fun in forums but they aren’t the best way to present the book review unless it fits the tone of the publication. It may help to avoid using the first person. Keep in mind that the review, read against the grain, may tell more about the reviewer than the actual book.

Take notes as you read. Gather examples of characterizations, world building, action, style, sensuality, (sound, taste, texture) passages that grab you, or not. These are the aspects of the review that will give it distinction.

Adjectives. Most writing does better without them. Instead of a poignant, stunning, breathtaking, awesome surprise ending, consider ‘the end will leave readers smiling for days to come.’ Also avoid redundant modifiers like final ending. See Jennifer Fallon for further insights.

Remember the Author. It may be appropriate to note something about the author. Is this their first novel? What else have they written? Qualifications? Are there more works coming?

Remember the Reader. Give readers enough information so they can assess the book’s appeal. Objectivity is the challenge here. Think matchmaking.

Develop your own Voice. The review is a composition with its own style, tone and impact. It is your voice, your freedom of speech. Polish and revise until it’s the best it can be. Remember, publishers will be reading it too!

Well written reviews give attention to new works and authors. They also bring attention to the genre. Mostly, they can engage you with a readership, bringing an invitation for further discussion, a gift offered to those who might want it. (see Part I) Have you written any reviews lately? Read any memorable ones? Authors, readers, reviewers, would you like to share your best/worst review experience? Discussions welcome!

In honor of Mercury (thoughts, learning, thinking, reading, teaching, communicating) in Scorpio (research, analyse, occult mystery tour) I am running a series of posts on writing.

Some of them appeared on the original Voyager Blog, which is no longer active. I thought I would pull them out of hibernation for all of you who love to read and write! And, with Mercury soon to go retrograde (rethink, revise, rewind) what better place to start than with ‘review’?

The word review comes from the Latin revidere, meaning to see again. In the literary world, a review examines with the purpose of critique. It’s a judgment, usually including two parts—summation and evaluation. It’s also a relationship.

Margaret Atwood uses biblical imagery to describe this relationship between the writer and reviewer. She places the author in the role of divine creator, drawing a blank page from the maw of Chaos and turning it, one day at a time, into a detailed narrative. On the 7th day (or perhaps 700th) it is handed over to the critic who spends considerably less time analysing it.

The critic looks ‘after the fact’ to discern if the novel has value, meaning, authenticity and plausibility, situating it in the context they believe it was written and finally giving it a result. The crucial point that Atwood makes is the novelist is distanced from the process of critical analysis. They are concerned with the act of creation, asking what will happen next and what is the right word. The critic has a different question. They ask, what does this mean. When the reader gets a hold of it, it’s something else again. They are asking what does this mean to me. In this way, the critic, reader and novelist can be at odds, each seeing the work from a different angle.

Marylaine Block, a librarian for over 22 years, pictures a more romantic relationship between author and critic. She likens reviewers to matchmakers, saying their primary function is to bring readers together with their perfect mates, books that they can appreciate and enjoy. Jonathan Marshall, a Research Fellow at Western Australian’s Edith Cowan University, takes it a step further. He sees the review as an invitation to discussion, a gift offered to those who might want it, rather than a bludgeon to instruct the insensitive masses.

Whether searching for meaning, matchmaking or creating an open forum, literary critics seldom miss the opportunity to exercise their authority. Not many reviews are free of criticisms and some can be brutal. Bruce Mazlish, a professor of history at MIT, highlights the reviewers’ power over the author. Reviews can affect careers, reputations, positions, salaries and self-esteem. He points out that a publisher’s ‘reader review’ can impact the decision to offer a contract. That’s significant power. Yet with all this weight given to the reviewer, very little training is required to become one. Mazlish sums it up neat. ‘Reviewing is regarded as a democratic practice: anybody can do it.’

What do you think? How important are reviews to you? Do you write them? Read them? Do they sway your opinion of an author or alter your reading choices? What stock do you put in Amazon.com reviews, of which can be bought now, I hear? Share your experiences here! Part II will follow tomorrow: 10 Tips for writing reviews.

Lao Tzu said character is destiny and it holds true in fiction as well as ‘real’ life. How characters think, what informs their past, what hopes excite them, as well as their physicality and environment, combine to create the next twist or turn in the story. So how can a mindless, flesh eating zombie EVER be a hot love interest? Paranomal heroes can, but zombies? NO!

That’s what I used to think. I even stated in an interview something along the lines of You’ll never see a zombie romance! It could never work.

No matter how brilliant the plot or true the love, characters have to have a potency of their own, and it’s got to be driving, charismatic. They must grow, change, exhibit emotions (or repress them), have likes and dislikes, flaws and attributes. Basically, they have to be ‘real’ people that the reader, or the viewer, can relate to. If they don’t feel alive they might as well be, you guessed it, zombies, and that’s not going to make anyone’s’ heart throb, or so I thought.

How in the world does one bring a zombie to life?Isaac Marion has the answer. You give them heart, or at least, a vestige of one. Once that awakens, a whole new world unfolds, where even a zombie can fall in love. Warm Bodies, a paranormal romance/horror/thriller, is the living proof. zombies don’t always make rotten lovers.

It might also be proof of a shift in our collective unconscious. I’ve talked before about vampires and other paranormal ‘monsters’ as ‘expression of the collective shadow’, and how our shifting relationship to these ‘demons’ in film and literature reflects a shift in our consciousness as we form a new relationship to that ‘shadow.’ (see Evolution of the Vampire Revisited) Falling for a zombie is definitely taking up a lot of new file space in my research. This thesis just keeps expanding! Bottom line, as a species, we are opening up, connecting with our dark side and transforming it through love, compassion, connection. Allowing.

Whether this book and film are new trend in paranormal romance, (is that possible?) or a statement about evolving human consciousness, Warm Bodies is a fun read! It’s a story about R, a young man in a state of existential crisis because he’s not alive, and not really dead. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic USA where R has no memories, until he eats someone’s. His growth arc is up the Matterhorn! (and I don’t mean Walt Disney’s)

Blurb: When the memories in one of his victim’s brains affect him, he finds himself attracted to, rescuing, befriending and eventually falling in love with the dead boy’s still living-girlfriend. Julie (Australia’s own Teresa Palmer) is a blast of colour in the dreary and grey landscape that is the “life” of the un-living. Their tense, awkward and strangely sweet relationship develops into something that will not only transform R, but his fellow zombies . . . Warm Bodies the film 2013

This is the second book in the series. It follows Daughter of Smoke and Bone. (my review here) I finished Days of Blood over a week ago but I had no clarity around how to comment on it, on my experience of reading it. Five stars, hands down, because Laini Taylor is a terrific writer, lyrical, potent and rich, so rich!

But . . .

I didn’t ‘enjoy’ being in this book and on reflection I’m pretty sure I wasn’t meant to. It’s dark, in the level of self-loathing and despair. It seems that Karou, Hope, is a word deleted. There’s no place for it in this world. Heart wrenching. Utterly. And cruel too.

It wasn’t until I went back and reread ‘Daughter’ that I could feel connected to the characters again, and I realized that Taylor had warned us, right on page one of the first book.

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It didn’t end well . . .

We knew what we were getting into.

The story is about change and survival, and what happens to the heart when we lose too much. It’s painfully sad, and hopeless, but after some time and distance from the book, I find a sense of hope rising again and this is the brilliance of the story. It reminds us of our ability to believe in the potential, at least, for something better, even when all signs point in another direction. Even when there is no reason to. I don’t know if that was Taylor’s intention, but it’s brilliant none the less.

I’ll read book three. I look forward to where it will takes us. I survived book two and really, how can it get any worse?

Has anyone else gotten into this series? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone is ‘paranormal’, the start of a fantasy series , but it feels as true as life. This story caught me up in the first paragraph and didn’t let me down until the tale was told. It’s not enough to say it was engaging. It’s more than that. The unfolding pages become part of life’s experiences, like a memory – something that happened that you still want to think about long after.

Laini Taylor is a lyrical writer, her prose as seductive as the characters she awakens. I love the weaving of original ideas with mythologies we all grew up with. For those familiar with seraphim and chimaera, you’re in for a treat! The Daughter of Smoke and Bone is both familiar and strange, and utterly believable. What a wonderful way to reexamine ideas of good and evil, love and hate, and most relevant, the prejudices we inherit and hold on to when we have no idea why. There are layers of connection and meaning that are not spelled out, or over explained, but released at perfect moments, so rewarding for the reader. I very much looking forward to the next in the series! When will that be, I wonder?

Kim Wilkins is a brilliant author and this book in particular touched my soul. Its moody and sensual and harsh and also vulnerable, as are the three young women who step into a world of angels and demons with the naivety of children. The story weaves around a contemporary journalist with not enough luck and a bit too much curiosity. As stories are told withing stories, the origins of one of the most famous poems ever written, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, is re-visioned. What a fabulous book!

Kim Wilkins has contrasted a 17th Century paranormal coming of age journey with modern day notions of right and wrong, good and bad, love and loss and finally, compassion. She paints vividly across a landscape that reaches from heaven to hell and back. It’s wonderful, and horrible, a gripping tale beautifully told. Bravo!

This is the 2nd book in the Pandora English series and I must say it was wonderful to return to Spector, to Great Aunt Celia, Lt Luke, the fashion industry and of course, Pandora. The writing style is fun and well paced but not superficial. There is depth running underneath the witty dialog and prose and more than a few ‘grains of truth.’ Tara knows how to write suspense and shiver-creepy scenes that make this a true paranormal read. I loved it!

As with the first book, The Blood Countess , TSG is well researched with gems of arachnology, ancient lore and mythology, witchcraft and that ‘Madam Blavatsky’ feel (I suppose Great Aunt Celia would have known her!) I particularly like how distinct and fresh feeling each character is (even the undead ones). No cliched writing here! Thank you!

Jeannette Maw is a master Law of Attraction author and coach so there is no surprise that Manifesting Made Simple is of the calibrate I’ve come to expect from her work. I was lucky enough to get my version with additional audio tracks and just hearing Jeannette explain how we often make this practice of deliberate creation too complex was enlightening. She’s lucid, warm and funny, and her enthusiasm is infectious.

The premise of MMS is simple: There is an art to getting what we want and it doesn’t have to be so hard. In her latest release, Jeannette gives it to us in such clear and concise terms it will turn your manifesting struggle into sweet and easy flow. For real. Included are a list of troubleshooting topics such as Conditional Happiness Malady, What-Is-Itis, Erroneous Signalosis and Scarcity Syndrome. There is also a whole section on ‘myth busters’ that clarify what this manifesting business is all about.

If you are curious about the law of attraction or a seasoned deliberate creator, Jeannette is cutting edge brilliance. What a gift!